Table of Contents

Digital Man's Captured Chat with Wayne Bell (1992)

Wayne Bell was the creator of WWIVBBS Software. Due to my familiarity with WWIV, both as a user and a sysop, I originally modeled the Synchronet BBS user experience (the “look and feel”, color scheme, command keys/combinations, etc.) on that of WWIV. Because of this, there were often rumors that Synchronet was a “WWIV hack” (meaning it was derived from the WWIV source code). The WWIV source code (both v3 in Pascal and v4 in C) was available for purchase from Wayne Bell and some people redistributed illegal copies of the WWIV source code leading to several “WWIV hacks” (e.g. Tag, Telegard, Renegade)… Synchronet was not one of these.

On June 16, 1992, Wayne Bell (a.k.a. “Random”) logged onto my (Digital Man's) Synchronet BBS, Vertrauen and initiated a chat session with the sysop (me). He introduced himself and explained that other people had told him that I was selling a BBS program (Synchronet, aka SBBS) that was a derivative (hack) of his program (WWIV). I of course explained that I was not and he asked to see some of my source files, which I showed him as proof that Synchronet did not use of any of WWIV's source code. The following is a partial capture of our chat session that followed:

Legend

Wayne's text is in bold-face type.

Rob's text is normal.

BBS Output is indented and fixed-width.

Capture

would never try something that stupid. But, unfortunately, for most users, the
look-and-feel is the only part they can evaluate.

Yeah, well Synchronet is quite different in the type and amount of features as
well, but I guess that isn't enough either. Sad that you released ALL of your
source code. It makes it real hard for you to tell if it's a hack or not
remotely. I don't give out 100% just for this reason. Someone with the source
cannot get rid of the Synchronet name and version and registration number before the NN: prompt. That way they could never say it was something else.

Well, unfortunately, it shouldn't be too hard to re-write that part of the
code that they don't have the source for. In order to make it really
difficult, you'd have to distribute too much in .obj format. In any case, I
don't give out the INIT or network source code, so if someone wants to not
have any of that, they'll have some fair amount of work to do.

Node 1: Dr. Seuss sent you a message:
DM in there?
Node 1: Dr. Seuss at main menu at 2400bps
Node 2: Storm downloading at 2400bps ETA 07:09 pm
Number of node to send message to or All: 1
Message: Yeah, I'll call you voice later. k?
Node 1: Dr. Seuss sent you a message:
Sure...

well, I made it very protected in that sense. The code that is distributed in
.obj format is not replaceable at all.

Why? What else is in it?

The entire wait for call and some significant internals are in ASM and I don't
give out any ASM source. Let me just say that it's also “protected”. That's
all the detail I can give on that. On another note, I was bummed to discover
you didn't give out technical specs on your net format, as I was at one time
going to try and implement WWIVnet compatibility. I've since changed my mind.

Actually, the file 'wwivdoc.zip' on my system is a tech doc on the network.

cool. Didn't know it existed. I tried looking at what network code there is in
the BBS source and didn't get anywhere due to lack of comments.

Gee, I guess that is a kind of copy protection in itself. I started out
deciding to comment it, but that didn't last too long. BTW, did you register
WWIV?

Nope. Didn't run it long enough to justify it. sadly enough. I've registered
every other piece of shareware I run here. Definitely worth $50 though.

Well, the source code is supposed to be available to registered users only.

Node 1: Dr. Seuss logged off.

Yeah, well the world isn't a fair place and people are dishonest. If I were
running WWIV (and using your source), I would have registered.. I think. I
certainly don't “give out” your source. No need. It's readily available on
pirate boards, as I'm sure you know.

Node 3: Ant Man logged on at 2400bps.

Yes, well, my point (such as it was) was that you had an illegal copy.

good point. Don't know what to tell you, other than I don't anymore.

Node 2: Storm logged off.

I didn't really expect you to say anything else.

Just making me feel guilty.. well… I probably should. I do have to say that
reading your source was the first 'C experience I ever had. Look what
happened? Oh no.

Well, writing it was MY first C experience. I'll bet you could tell which
parts got written first too.

yeah, I can still tell what's old in my code. I heard that you converted it
from Pascal to C using a conversion program.

No, it was all written from scratch in C, although I did look at the pascal so
source when writing some of the routines.

Node 3: Ant Man sent all nodes a message:
Help Me.

how sad. A user needs help.. bummer.

Node 3: Ant Man at main menu at 2400bps
Number of node to send message to or All: 3
Message: no

BTW, you sent him that message. I didn't.

Whatever. I'll just say someone hacked my account.

Node 3: Ant Man at main menu at 2400bps
Node 4: Random in local chat with digital man at 14400bps

Well the node activity shows you in chat with me.

Whatever. I could never really get into that multi-node stuff, the few
systems like that I've been on, it's always annoyed me when those messages
popped up in the middle of doing something. can you turn them off?

yeah, I'd be flattered if you'd check out Synchronet a bit. It really is quite
different from WWIV externally as well.

Well, I've always had fun writing stuff without seeing any of the
'competition', having written the WWIVnet stuff without seeing fidonet,
internet, usenet, or anything. Amazing it works as well as it does. But, I
will probably take a look at it, if not now, then sometime this week.

that's cool. I am always trying to examine other BBS packages and see what
they have and don't have. Speed is always an issue with me as well.

Well, on a BBS, there isn't much that takes very long, but whatever.

Well, you might be curious at the bench marks of WWIV vs. Synchronet. Just
viewing messages or menus, searching 154,000 files for a text string or 20,000
posts for a string (I don't think WWIV does that anyway). But there are
certainly many things that require speed. The faster and smaller, the better.

I certainly agree with that, but when the BBS relies on external programs as
much as WWIV does (protocols, editors, network, games, etc), size is more
important to me, although I obviously want to avoid stupid code.

obviously. Well you want a tour, or do you want to cut your bill?

Probably better get going now, a few other things I have to do tonight. Good
to resolve that issue, at least.

yes, I appreciate your um… looking in to it. I don't want anyone (especially the
author) to think I'm guilty of copyright infringement - though I would consider
it a bigger crime as plagiarism.

Yeah, I'm always more concerned about that. It really gets me when these
people think to call it theirs when actually they couldn't even come close to
getting something to work that well if they started from scratch.

Yes, very disturbing. But they say that imitation is the greatest form of
flattery. I don't believe hacking someone else's code is an imitation - it's
plagiarism. I say Synchronet is an imitator to a degree. So I guess you should
be flattered?

Well, it is as similar to WWIV as WWIV was to the Apple II “Networks” BBS of
so many years ago.

True. I believe the Forum interface is very similar as well.

That would be a coincidence (unless they did that from WWIV or Networks),
since I've never even called Forum.

Node 3: Ant Man chatting with The Guru at 2400bps

oh…. well glad to know that bit of history. well I'll let you go. This is
costing some dough. Also, just curious. I read a post on your system saying
4.22 or something was going to be the last WWIV version?

That was true at the time, but now that Filo is handling the registrations of
WWIV, that probably won't be the case.

how many registered WWIV owners are there?

I don't know offhand. In any case, the number who have registered is
certainly larger (by a factor of 2 or 3) than the number still running it.

that's great. (I think). I forget, is there a time limit on the non-source
code version running as a BBS?

Yes - 3 months. There is now a restriction in WWIVnet such that you can only
be in the net, and unregistered, for 3 months, then you have to either
register or you get dropped from the net. Pretty effective, the number of
registrations went up pretty significantly after that was announced.

So it's really a WWIVnet registration. If someone weren't using WWIVnet (maybe
a member of a smaller net using the same technology), they wouldn't have any
pressure to register. Is that right?

If you're running WWIV, to stay in the net after 3 months, you have to be
registered. If you're not running WWIV, but running the WWIVnet software
(such as VBBS systems), you have to register the WWIVnet software after 3
months ($20). If you are using your own software unrelated to WWIV and
WWIVnet (and there are a few), you don't have to register anything.

Do you want other BBS packages supporting WWIVnet internally?

Doesn't really make much difference to me. At this point, I'm amazed that
WWIVnet is still around (as a networking method), as I was surprised when it
hit 30 systems (being at 1188 now).

That's great. WWIV has been a pretty significant success. Is it your only
means of income? (if you don't mind me asking)

No, I work full-time as a programmer also.

How sad. I've been working full-time (Multiuser Networked apps, Unix and
X/Motif, etc.) for years and recently gave it all up to do Synchronet
full-time. I sure hope the income is enough. I don't like putting all that
creative energy into something that someone else controls the destiny of.

Well, the main point is that you get to play with lots of expensive equipment
at work, and have access to a lot of stuff that I would never buy.

True. My last job was High-speed data acquisition on CDC R6000 (88mhz)
machines. I wouldn't buy that on my own. I wouldn't use it either.

Well, I get to interface with 20 year old computers. Maybe they're older. On
their last legs, though. You get a different view there, let me tell you.

I bet. you work with System 36s or PDP11s?

No, we have these old Gould machines, one day the air conditioning broke down
and they had to shut down the computer room. The Sun 4/380's could out
compute them easily. Pretty scary, they were fairly reasonable, in their day,
I hear.

So were Cybers (CDC's stuff). I used to work for Control Data.

Well, I've never had that opportunity, but we'll see what happens. The
expensive stuff is now becoming pretty cheap.

Yeah, and software development is suffering. Bigger code (C++ is a joke) and
faster development, because the hardware will take up the slack.

Well, these old Gould machines have like 64k (65536 bytes) of memory. The
systems we're designing for now, we do things like assume it has 256 MB of
memory, maybe we'll have 1GB on-line memory by the time it is actually done.

Geez.

and 300mips.

No matter what (even at 300mips), a faster program will do more
in less time. This higher-level language idea of bigger is better, and object
orientation will die when the scientists need more data in less time and the
only way is better code. Not better hardware. Someday that'll happen.

Well, like my father says (who is a performance manager/engineer), “all
computers wait at the same rate - 1 second per second.” Most computers are
idling most of the time in any case, and for most people (managers doing their
spreadsheet so that they can work themselves into bankruptcy, or the secretary
making out the coffee fund sheet), it doesn't matter. What matters for most
applications now is getting it out 6 months before the competition.

exactly. That's sad. I'm glad I had plenty of time without pressure to work on
SBBS. My favorite computer idiot (over-used?) terms is “crunching numbers”. They
don't even know what the fuck it means.

Well, it's hard to tell. There are some systems where you have to process a
lot of data, but mostly, in the future, I think they're going to be going to be more
concerned with I/O. Computer hardware development now is really stressing CPU
power and ignoring IO bandwidth. Oh well.

true. 8mhz AT bus is such a joke - and on a 50mhz 486. What a mismatch. (this
discussion could go on forever, of course). I'll let us break it here if you
wish. It's your bill.

(business expense anyway). But, I'd better get going. Probably call back
later this week or next to look around some.

cool. It's a bit of a validation (?) having you on the boards. Less people
would believe that you'd let me slide on a WWIV hack (selling it nationwide,
etc.)

Well, it's good that you aren't. Feel free to call my BBS (and download the
WWIVnet tech doc if you want).

I just might. You say 1188 nodes on WWIVnet? (That probably justifies support.

Yeah, and a few hundred on other WWIVnet-type networks (it seems there are
more and more every day - god knows why).

They're using WWIV.

No, I mean more and more separate networks using WWIVnet software.

Maybe they don't want a million netted posts every day. I can understand
wanting to be a part of a smaller network.

It's not like usenet, you only get those posts you ask for, so if you wanted
to just be a node without any netted subs, you wouldn't have much traffic at
all. But, whatever.

It's not the traffic. They may want a netted sub that only gets netted
messages from two or there other BBSs (local, probably) so there aren't a
million posts every day. I don't think the traffic is an issue. WWIVnet
supports routing, I believe.

Yeah. But, you can set up a sub yourself that only has 3 systems in it. I do
agree though that some number of separate nets makes sense, but there are too
many already (as far as I can tell).

Probably. And there's no push for them to register if they're not on WWIVnet.
Maybe you should integrate some sort of protection in the future.

Well, the two other largest WWIVnet-type networks are pushing for registration
also, so it's not like I'm completely out in the dark. But, I'm too paranoid
about the protection not working, and cutting off someone that it shouldn't.
But, really should be going now.

okay. Sorry to drag it out. I'll see you later.

have fun.

End of chat.
0:44:47 [1] Public [1] Notices: /O

Epilogue

Although I used to be a user on Wayne Bell's BBS (Amber) and participated at one time on his BBS network (WWIVnet), the above chat was my one and only interaction with him, ever.

From my exposure to Wayne's software, its documentation, and its source code, I had assumed that he was no older than I (a teenager at the time). It was only later that I realized the he was actually about 10 years older than me and much more experienced in the professional world of software development, though you could not tell that by looking at the WWIV source code.

WWIV is no longer in the hands of Wayne Bell and is actually open source (like Synchronet). It's a bit ironic now, but WWIV version 5 actually includes the Synchronet FOSSIL driver to enable support for 16-bit external programs (doors) on Windows systems. So while Synchronet never included any of Wayne's code, WWIV has now (for several years) included some of mine.